Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Warner Chappell, Radiohead’s publisher, is announcing that the band “sold” 3 million copies of In Rainbows, the album that they essentially gave away online in a pay-what-you-want scheme. The reports are that they made more on the album than they did on their previous dumpling, Hail to the Thief. Previous sales numbers were in the high hundred thousands, which makes this move particularly interesting. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/10/16/radiohead-sells-3-million-copies-of-in-rainbows-but-how-much-is-that-in-american 10/16)

As this album has essentially been on continue play in my house since release, I highly recommend it.  Click the image below to purchase.  That said, if you’re not a big fan of Thom Yorke’s voice, you probably won’t like it.

An off the cuff remark by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer this morning set Yahoo’s stock soaring more than 15% to $13.73, adding well over $3 billion in market cap to the struggling company. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/16/ballmer-speaks-yahoos-market-cap-jumps-more-than-1-billion 10/16)

Google and Yahoo can’t shrug off the slowing economy anymore, as advertisers are forced to extend their budget cuts to the Web. The online-ad industry is forecast to lose $6.7 billion in sales through 2010. “The weakness is happening in search and display advertising and everywhere.” (Iwantmedia 10/15, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=ahAHBdzwGWZo 10/16)

John Battelle’s Federated Media advertising network is launching a new suite of tools to help marketers measure ad campaigns across social media. Actions like Twitter mentions, blog posts and comments, widget adoption and social bookmarking are to be tracked and scored. (Iwantmedia 10/15, http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631168 10/15)

YouTube CEO Chad Hurley, seeking partnerships with content owners, claims the difference between old and new media is merely “semantics.” Perhaps alluding to Viacom’s copyright lawsuit, Hurley says: “Do you circle the wagons and push back change, or do you embrace it?” (Iwantmedia 10/15, http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=41412&Category=  10/15)

Chad Hurley

The Google Content Network has another entrant jockeying for views and dollars on the new platform. Poptub is a video series meant to keep users up to date with what’s cool on YouTube, described by THR as an Entertainment Tonight for the portal. (It’s actually Embassy Row’s resurrection of their show The 9 also hosted by Maria Sansone, which appeared exclusively on Yahoo until it was cancelled in April.) Like Seth McFarland’s long-titled Cartoon Cavalcade of Comedy, Poptub will generate revenue by delivering demo-based impressions for sponsor Pepsi as the videos are syndicated via Google AdSense across the web. (Cynopsis 10/16)

PBS has also partnered with YouTube to empower American voters to upload their Election Day voting experiences. Some of the best videos will be showcased on PBS television, as part of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer’s Election Day broadcast. Some will also be featured throughout PBS’ election coverage, both on-air and online. (Cynopsis 10/16)

Access 360 Media and P2P voter engagement group About 18 in ‘08 launched Shop the Vote, a digital out-of-home public service campaign designed to reach young folks before Nov. 4 in stores, online and on their mobile phones. Concerned citizens can upload opinion pieces on YouTube that will be featured on Access 360 Media’s retail-based screens. (Cynopsis 10/16)

MySpace added video to its Karaoke service MySpace Karaoke as part of a nicely conceived redesign. You can now record videos your hammy performances in either standard def or high-def and enter into a series of contests tied to mainstream artists’ works. Other changes include increased sharing options and a new recommendation engine.  The contests kick off with the Jesse McCartney karaoke contest from Oct. 15 – 27, 2008, followed by The Seal karaoke contest, running Nov. 11- 24, 2008. (Cynopsis 10/16)

Things are getting tough these days for our four legged friends as well, as animal shelters in many cities have exceeded their capacity. NBCU’s Petside.com has organized an event with a group of bloggers and other sites today to advocate a national day of Pet ‘Net Adoption. (Cynopsis 10/16)

In what is already a big week in the media player space Adobe launched Flash 10 yesterday, the latest incarnation of what has become the standard for viewing online video. In beta since last May, Flash’s new features include support of 3D effects, custom filters and an enhanced drawing API. New to the version shipping today is the ability to add audio files’ binary data to add a greater variety of sound filters to video. Despite Silverlight’s high-profile debut, more than 86% of online videos were viewed in Flash according to comScore’s August numbers. (Cynopsis 10/16)